It has been too long since my last post. Partly due to the boring nature of the last week or so, but also to do with the busy nature of the week as well. Although there has been some fun we've had and some good stuff we've come up with--or more appropriately came across.
We found a recipe for chocolate chips made with cacao, coconut oil and stevia inspired by http://wholenewmom.com/recipes/desserts/homemade-chocolate-or-carob-chips/#comment-25510. We only had what I mentioned above and did not add vanilla (since it is technically not something we are suppose to have.
Cacao Coconut Oil Chips
- 1 part pure cacao powder
- 1 part coconut oil
- We did about 3 or 4 droppers full of stevia
Melt the coconut oil on very low heat (you only need it melted and slightly warm so the cacao will mix easily--if you heat too much then the whole thing separates and just does not work as well. Mix in the cacao and the stevia. Place in a flat pan (we used about a 9X9 pan. Pour the contents into the pan and let it sit in the refrigerator. To speed the process up we placed it in the freezer for about 5 minutes and it was done. Cut the chocolate into chunks. As we cut the chocolate it separated into chunks by itself.
This was the closest thing to chocolate chips we've had while on this crazy diet and we LOVED them... even made some chocolate chip cookies from http://cookieandkate.com/2013/gluten-free-chocolate-chip-cookies/
Be careful though... since the coconut oil has such a low melting point we ended up with a baking sheet of very good cookie type bars (not cookies) we still haven't figured out how to get them to look like the picture but they were delicious! Even the batter was delicious. We did leave out the vanilla extract in ours and it was still excellent. We haven't tried it yet, but we want to add an egg or two to see if they stick together more like cookies would.
This has been a week of reflection for my wife and me... we have really been very disciplined with our diet but have not seen all the great benefits we have been hoping for. However; we did review how great we have felt physically. My blood pressure is down from 139/95 down to something like 98/70 (or something really healthy. Also, my resting heart rate when I got up to run one day last week was 45! I don't ever remember having a resting heart rate that low EVER! There are other benefits but the ringing in the ears is still there and the sinus pressure is still there.
I even got to the point this last week where I decided I need to give up or try harder to get the results I need. If my wife wasn't as strong as she's been with this whole diet then I think I may have ended up with a big cheeseburger in my hand that night and I would have been done. As it is we've come up with something slightly more crazy.
A lot of what we've been reading online talks about potatoes and even rice (or at least white rice) being bad for the growth of candida. Other sites say that chocolate and cacao are bad for your body while it is trying to heal. Thinking (and looking back at the blog) it appears the fastest progress was while we were being more pure with our diet. Early on we swore off stevia but it didn't take long for our taste buds to adjust and we LOVE it. However; it was during the times we weren't having stevia when we feel like we were gaining the most ground.
What it has really come down to though is the idea that nobody has all the right answers and as everybody in the whole world is different we are beginning to think that this includes nutrition. My Doctor wasn't kidding when he said the only way to really know if a food bothers you is to stop eating it and then introduce it again.
With this in mind we've decided to cut off cacao, stevia, white rice and potatoes (at least right now). The idea is that our diets have been very pure and we want to see if we notice some pretty quick improvements over the course of the next few days or weeks. Every time we feel we have it pinned down it ends up being the wrong direction.
One of the most frustrating things right now is that I do believe what we are trying to achieve is more simple than we've made it out to be, but we are just not sure what our bodies need to have happen to heal. I've also said this before but I also think it could be just time our bodies need, which would be kind of funny because we could try something and our bodies react (or feel better) and we associate it with whatever it was we were doing at the time when it may not be that at all. (if that makes any sense.
I hope to have something more exciting in the coming days and weeks.
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